July 2011 Books on CD

Jack, terminally ill and preparing to say goodbye to his family, has a miraculous recovery after his wife is killed in a car accident and struggles to reunite his family at her childhood home on the South Carolina oceanfront.

Growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans, Bethia Mayfield yearns for an education that is closed to her due to her gender. As soon as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observes its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other.

The Kingdom by Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood

On a journey that will take them to Tibet, Nepal, China, Italy, and Siberia, the Fargos find themselves embroiled with black-market fossils, an ancient Tibetan kingdom, a lost landmass in the North Sea, Stone Age ostrich egg shards inscribed in a cryptic language, a pair of battles separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years … and a skeleton that could just turn the history of human evolution on its head.

Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver

A James Bond thriller set in the present day finds the iconic British spy engaging a horrific modern villain in a cat-and-mouse chase that takes him from the Balkans and London to the African Continent.

In the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis wildly misinterprets the relationship between her sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, childhood friends home from Cambridge. So when her young cousin is assaulted, Briony gives in to her hyperactive imagination and blames the atrocity on Robbie. It is a terrible decision that alters lives and fills Briony with an everlasting sense of guilt.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

In 1957, family secrets prompt Joy to travel to Shanghai and search for the father she never knew. Entranced with idealism and her father’s wisdom, she joins the New Society movement that has swept across China.

Nonfiction

Guns, Germs and Steel

Examines questions pertaining to how and why some societies have managed to capitalize on such things as advanced technology, a large population, and a well-organized work force to to progress faster than others. Explores the roots of inequality among societies.

In the Garden of Beasts

In 1933, President Roosevelt personally selected William E. Dodd to be the United States ambassador to Nazi Germany. Dodd took his family with him, including his daughter Martha. Initially enamored with the Nazi party and its passion, Martha supported the Third Reich. However, when Hitler’s violent policies became apparent, Martha changed her opinion and watched in horror. Here, author Erik Larson offers a chilling first-person account of Germany’s transformation under Hitler’s rule.

The Greater Journey

David McCullough chronicles the lives of American artists and scientists who studied in Paris and ultimately changes America because of their experiences.